Victoria (city)
| Leader(s) |
The Courier |
| Founded |
2015 |
| Affiliations |
|
| Website |
? |
| VP Suite |
? |
Victoria, unofficially also known as Vicky is a city in Blizzard. Started in 2015 as an experimental offshoot of a larger building community in Active Worlds, the city of Victoria became a proper independent project in the aftermath of the city's main leaders being forcibly exiled onto Virtual Paradise due to larger community drama in AW. Victoria itself is notable for having inspired later cities as well as having brought people over who would become respected as master builders within the VP community at large.
Victoria has played the role of capital to the former Xennan Republic, the Victorian Republic, and the provisional seat of government for the Commonwealth. Victoria is also the central flagship city within the overall region of Victoria, an wider area that includes Cannaville, New Beachfield & Sparta as associated suburbs and counties of Vicky.
History
Beginnings
In 2015, citizens of Alphaworld began work on a new city called Fantasia. The city became a boom-town for residents that continued to make use of the platform, and it had attracted builders such as OptimumPx and KoL to come together and form a unique building group called the Xennan Republic. As the community grew and began to host community events, the leadership also began to make public criticisms of the direction of AW, particularly aimed at the owner for allowing the platform to stagnate. By this point, the residents of Fantasia became more aware of Virtual Paradise and its capabilities as a platform, prompting some to explore the idea of expanding XR into VP. The Victoria Colony was never intended to be a proper city, and was treated more of an experiment in testing out VP's building capabilities. It was not until tensions boiled to a head that the owner of AWI would disable the account of Fantasia's mayor, The Courier, which forced most of the Xennan building group over to VP. Victoria would declare itself as an independent city-state, operating in the same fashion as the Xennan project.
From Growing Pains to Major Power (2015-2017)
Victoria itself would not find much love in Virtual Paradise starting off; largely due in part towards its choice of creation as well as steadfast independence from most infrastructure within Blizzard. Victoria would truthfully not be taken seriously at all until the migration of Optimum into VP, who laid the first initial builds (mainly ports of older Fantasia and Phoenix City builds) in the town. In order to expand, the Victorian leadership would encourage AW citizens to migrate to VP, primarily those who were experienced builders. This was met with mixed results, but Victoria and her efforts of encouraging immigration into VP would nevertheless bring people such as GSK, Tardy, SirGreendown, and Optimum into the platform.
Of much larger issue was its relationship with the Kingdom of Palmshire and her associated cities, which Victoria found herself in direct competition with. The city of Victoria would heavily push its national project, the Republic of Victoria, as an alternative to the long-standing kingdom. This became complete with its own version of a parliament, the Peerage of Victoria, which was treated as a shot against the Parliament as it was seen by many to be the de-facto meeting venue for the VP community at the time. Peers were often the major builders within the city itself who de-facto controlled large chunks of metropolitan Vicky territory, which was meant to reward and encourage retention of builders exclusively to the city, mainly to no avail. In August 2016, tensions would come to a head as Victoria would be the main force alongside Summerville and the Lemerican Federation in protesting the parliament system on the VP Facebook group, jointly accusing the Parliament of not fully representing all of VP while imposing laws upon the world of Blizzard itself. After solutions were reached, drama flared again the following day until the existing parliament including Palmshire itself was dissolved by Legion, leaving Victoria, Summerville, and Lemerican the only active communities for a while.
Victoria's national government would be dissolved as well as that of Palmshire's own government collapsing by January 2017, but the city itself remained an active force and quickly reformed its own government in the wake of community anarchy in VP. Neighboring New Beachfield and Victoria would merge together, briefly forming New Atlanta until August 2017, when the city of NB changed hands back to Sarah, although it remained apart of the republic. Cannaville would also become closely tied to developments in the city due to its proximity to Vicky.
Contemporary Victoria (2018 to Present)
In 2018, the Victorian Republic was formally dissolved for a second time, which led to the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent Cities, meant to replace the influence of nation roleplay within Blizzard and encourage cooperation among individual cities. The city itself would remain somewhat silent until the early 2020s in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and restored interest among the wider community in Virtual Paradise. The national government itself would be reformed again by 2022, in a slimmer form that only considered Cannaville and New Beachfield to be returning members, and the city government would be reorganized as well. March 2023 was a particularly noteworthy time in Victorian history, as Cannaville itself would merge directly with the city of Victoria, creating Canna County (the area of former Cannaville) and granting Tardyllama the rank of Peer. Core Victoria would be reorganized into Victoria County, granting Peerage to Courier, OptimumPx, and PCBilder. RyanLion would also be given Peerage in the newly established Ryan County in the same month.
The Commonwealth would also establish a new charter by early 2023, with Victoria signing onto the revived organization alongside Summerville, New Cypress Hollow, Cannaville, and Lynnfeld. In April 2023, the village of Sparta was founded by Zezima on the outskirts of Victoria's boundaries with permission from the city government. Sparta County would become Victoria's fourth organized county a day later. New Beachfield would also sign on a week later to the new reorganization of Vicky, becoming the fifth county.
City Government
Victoria uses a council-manager government led by an city council, a mayor, and an appointed city manager. The city council is organized as the Peerage of Victoria, in which select builders are given special rights largely due to a number of factors (amount of builds, territory management, etc). The mayor is the prime leader of the city and can override peers, but peers usually have a large degree of freedom in operation. Counties are organized districts under the direct leadership of a Peer, whereas Territorial Districts are under direct leadership by the mayor direct. Peers can only be appointed and revoked by the mayor.
The current peers of Victoria are as follows:
- The Courier (mayor and peer for Victoria County)
- Tardyllamma (peer for Canna County, formerly the city of Cannaville)
- RyanLion (peer for Ryan County)
- Zezima (peer for Sparta County)
- Sarah (peer for New Beachfield County)
At the moment, there are currently five counties (Victoria, Ryan, Canna, Sparta, and NB). The last territorial district, Augusta, was annexed into New Beachfield on April 2023.